


Glory to... 9S?

by ShyZombie



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: 21O wants to mother 9S by the way, Crack Treated Seriously, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyZombie/pseuds/ShyZombie
Summary: 9S comes back from his encounter with Adam changed. Specifically, he comes back human.
Kudos: 24





	Glory to... 9S?

9S woke up feeling more tired than he had before he'd gone asleep. It was a frustrating feeling, and probably why he'd stayed up so late in the first place.

It was an odd instinct he'd developed, and most likely a counter intuitive one, to ignore this body's signals. He wasn't entirely sure why he did it. Perhaps it was out of a misplaced sense of stubbornness or spite; a refusal to accept what Adam had done to him. Probably, it wasn't healthy, and shouldn't feel even a little like a victory when he did it.

Maybe it would help if he had something else to think about. 

He tried, but no alternative presented itself. Normally when that happened, he could think about 2B, but she still hadn't come to visit. That made him uneasy, even though what was most likely was that she hadn't been allowed in. He knew she was safe. He knew that she had found him like this, but he knew little else. Whatever her reaction had been was included in that lack of knowledge.

So it was this body he thought about. There wasn't much else to do

This body looked near identical to his own, down to the exact measurements. He knew. They had checked and poked and prodded until he was sore both mentally and physically.

Aside from his anatomy becoming more detailed than he was comfortable discussing out loud, from the outside, he looked about the same as he always had. Provided of course, he was free from the recent addition of dark rings under his eyes.

Also, provided, that no one looked very close. 

At which point, he was sure, his teeth became a little too wet and shiny, and his forearms, unobscured by his gloves, a little too dusted with follicles for small white hairs. And then there was his skin. While it remained flexible and thin, it was now covered with a latticework of fine lines that were especially obvious on his hands. It was just another thing he'd never known about humans, that he'd never noticed before in any of the old world photos.

He'd only noticed them now because his most recent hobby- when he wasn't too busy feeling the jagged rip in him where there was once a vast maze of internal systems, systems he'd made a habit of modifying and maintaining himself for max efficiency- was to stare at them. Briefly, he imagined those lines looked something like what he lost.

9S's stomach growled, while an uncomfortable pressure mounted in his newly acquired bladder. He face-planted himself into his pillow and groaned.

Speaking of new anatomy...

Fun fact, there wasn't a single toilet anywhere on the bunker. Who would have thought? He'd certainly never bothered to.

Androids did occasionally eat of course, for pleasure primarily. However, aside from a few notable exceptions like mackerel, most waste was pretty efficiently converted into energy and other materials useful to the continued functioning of their hardware. So there were certainly methods of waste disposal on the bunker, but toilets? Nope.

They’d literally given him a bucket, and didn't that just make his cheeks burn.

(9S hadn't, in fact, even known what a toilet was until after he had seen the awful thing and asked the one who brought it, a little pleadingly, if there wasn't a better way. She had told him they would look into it, but apparently, constructing plumbing in space was difficult and extraneous for only one person and this whole mess had thrown the whole bunker into a tizzy and there were currently 'higher priorities'.)

Somehow, when he'd imagined humans before, he hadn't had this in mind. Of course, he hadn't had HIMSELF in mind either.

No matter how strong the predictive power of your math and models, there were just some things that you couldn't see coming. Being kidnapped by a crazy, human looking, human **obsessed** machine named Adam, only to wake up as a human _himself_ after the fact... was one of those things. In fact, had anyone suggested such a mission outcome fell remotely within the realm of possibility (before or after 9S had met Adam) he'd have politely recommended they get their logic circuits checked.

He still hadn't discounted the possibility that none of this was real at all, that he wasn't still inside the network and playing a part in some elaborate, human loving torture fantasy.

"Kill me now," said 9s, just in case, words and face muffled by his pillow.

The pod bobbed in the air, about a foot away from his bed.

"Request denied. I am programmed to value human life. As such, your destruction would be counterproductive."

9S sighed and sat up.

"Come on, I _know_ you know this one. It's called sarcasm. Or being melodramatic. Or possibly both those things."

"While I am familiar with these terms," Pod 153 said,

"Recent statistical analyses imply an alarming increase of similar statements voiced by former Yorha unit 9S. When paired with contextual physiological data, there is enough evidence to diagnose these sporadic outbursts as 'mood swings'; a temporary mental affliction common among humans in your physical age group. Proposal: get some sleep."

9S threw the pillow at his pod.

\--------

21O set the platter down on the room's small desk, then turned to face where he sat on his cot.

"Remember 9S, finish all your greens and do try to consume at least 3 meals a day. You are a growing boy, after all."

21O bent down, hesitated for a moment, then evidently got over her hesitation and gave him a quick pet on the head. 

9S froze stiff, but it was over quickly. Really, it was very efficient, as far as pets on the head go, and afterwards she straightened with a curt nod, as if they had both just conspired to preform a duty that, though potentially dangerous, was completely essential.

He failed to share this view, and it was a testament to his residual personality as a scanner- namely his incessant curiosity- that he hadn't drawn back, but rather waited to observe her reaction.

It was also because of this same curiosity that he couldn't exactly blame her. He knew this was kind of a big deal, and if he was honest, he'd be pretty intrigued if it was anyone in this situation other than him- hell, he'd probably want to poke him too, just once- but still. He was tired of all the prodding at this point. It was especially unnerving coming from 21O. If they wanted to calm him down with a familiar face, it might help if that face actually acted familiar. 

This... this was just awkward.

9S broke the silence. He huffed, slightly strained and a little like a laugh.

"You know I'm not a dog, right?"

His operator’s brows knit.

"No, you most certainly are not. Did someone say something to give you that impression? Would you like to talk about it?"

From there, things somehow got even weirder.

\--------

Somewhere in the bunker, after 9S's platter was removed, it was spirited away to the newly constructed lab.

Somewhere in the bunker, in the same general vicinity, the newly assembled team was discreetly panicking.

They had been in a flurry to collect data and samples from 9S before he'd even regained consciousness. Strands of hair and swabs of spit, skin cells, and blood had all been analyzed six ways to the moon. His saliva, too, was to be routinely checked for the development of any new bacterial contaminants.

(The pods had helpfully reminded everyone involved that it would not be unreasonable to assume that unit 9S had an immune system equivalent to or worse than that of an infant's, and while there hadn't been humans on Earth for some time, certainly long enough that most human specialized diseases should have since died out, it was still better to error on the side of caution.)

That would have been all well and good, if every sample they'd acquired hadn't deteriorated so damn fast. No matter how many medical records they scanned through they couldn't make any sense of it. 9S himself seemed stable. It had only been a few days, but it didn't seem like his cells were dividing or dying at an accelerated rate. No, when the samples died, they had looked perfectly fine up to the second when they suddenly weren't. Like they'd self-destructed.

There was no way this wasn't intentional, and now they were scrambling their circuits over how to 'un-hack' an organic life form. No matter how many times it was said, 'genetic engineering' was still an answer that helped absolutely nobody after the subject had already been born. Whoever had just as unhelpfully suggested exposing the subject to nuclear waste had clearly been reading records with too many pictures and creative usages of onnomonopia.

The problem was especially harrowing considering how keen the commander was on trying to preserve every sample of DNA she could get her hands on. 

As if this wasn't enough to worry about, one of the classified members of the newly classified lab had been tasked to look into whether it was possible to implant 9S's DNA into the egg of another species. Another was approached to look into any rumors regarding re-emerged primate populations in android occupied territories. Yet _another_ member was asked to consider whether it was possible to construct an external artificial womb in which a human fetus might be able to develop.

Apparently, the timing of 9S's 'incident' had coincided perfectly with the discovery of an alien bioweapon that had hitched a ride on supplies bound for the moon, and it had already severely impacted the fertility and live birth rates of it's population. 

None of the team, as individual units, knew the entire truth of what the commander wanted. However, whatever piece they did know was beyond classified, and everyone on the team knew just enough to know what 'classified' really meant was 'dangerous'.

So, it was probably best not to overthink things any further than, 'aliens. Am I right?'

\--------

Two days earlier

\--------

2B had noticed something odd.

She recalibrated the internal sensors that allowed her to judge an object's weight and gauge the proportional amount of force to exert in response. 

She wasn't immediately alarmed. It wasn't entirely abnormal for a draining battle to effect her sensors, and... That was even failing to take into account her earlier emotional instability.

But then she shifted him in her arms, and 9S's head lolled limp to one side, as if lacking its normal reinforcement. There was something wrong with him. He felt light, too light, even for a scanner.

(And oh, how she was used to his weight in her arms by now.)

His body was also too warm to have been inactive for long. She could feel it clearly now that she herself had begun to cool down. If it was a simple matter of Adam overtaxing his internal processing power, it shouldn't be his whole body that had overheated. All of this disconcerted 2B, but she was no maintenance specialist, so she grit her teeth and kept walking. There were plenty other things to worry about, if she wanted to.

Such as what Adam had showed him and whether it had been too much.

Such as whether she had saved him only to lose him again.

\--------

It wasn't long after she (rather literally) dropped 9S off that rumors began to spread.

Later, 2B fought her way back into maintenance to confirm for herself, only to hear he'd been moved. Apparently, entirely new equipment had needed to be constructed to preform in-depth diagnostics on an organic.

2B quietly excused herself to her quarters, and for the first time in her life, she shed tears because she was happy.

With this- this miracle, if it was real, if he was stable, and they said he was healthy- the existence of 9S would finally become as important to the world as it was to her. 

There would be no more kill orders. 

And he certainly wouldn't be hacking any time soon, not without some kind of physical interface. Even assuming his organic brain retained the factory standard knowledge of a scanner and a comparable level of processing power, she doubted it was possible to bypass the bunker's adaptive defenses with fingers between 9S and his response time.

Therefor, 9S was safe. He wouldn’t be joining her in the field again, but he was safe. That was the only thing 2B had ever dared to wish for. She was happy.

_Even if he ends up joining the other humans on the moon? Even if they just make another 9S you'll have to kill in his place?_

No, it was enough. It had to be enough. This 9S. 

Just this one 9S would get to live with the memories of their time together. It was selfish, yes, but... it would be enough to make her feel like there was actually a god to pray to, if only she looked out the bunker window.

She did, and for once, she said it without reproach:

_Glory to mankind._

_._

_._

_._

(Then the logic virus came to the bunker, and 9s was back on the ground whether it was safe or not.)

(Then they were both on the ground, and suddenly, 9S wasn't the only one with just one life to spare anymore, even if he was the only one who could never be infected.)

(That was when everything went to hell.)

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: Fixed issue where initially mixed up 9S's pod with 2B's.


End file.
